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Apr 27 2009

Browser Classics

Long before Apple took the Jaguar on Safari, Cyberdog brought the web to Mac. This week we’ll look of the original free web browsers.

NCSA Mosaic 2.0

The great-grand-daddy of all browsers, this is where the web began ten years ago. Believe it or not, Mosaic is still downloadable and functional, more or less.

Netscape Communicator 4.8

As the story goes, Mosaic’s creators go commercial and create Netscape. Before abandoning the original code in favor of the new Gecko rendering engine in version 6, communicator matured to the still loved version 4.8.

Cyberdog 2.0

My personal favorite and Apple’s first true web browser, Cyberdog integrated mail, news and the web built with customizable OpenDoc technology. Though Apple long ago left Cyberdog for the pound, you can still download it and it maintains a following on the web.

Internet Explorer

Well, I was about to go looking for an old downloadable version of IE, but I realized that it hasn’t changed all that much, so you can fire up 5.1 and have about the same experience as with the classic version.

The faces have changed, but the game is the same. With Safari, Camino and Internet Explorer vying for control of the web, it’s worth revisiting the past to see what progress we’ve made in 10 years.

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

A Brief History of Free Software (Part 1)

This week, we’re going to try something a little different. Rather than enjoying free apps, we’re going to learn about how freeware came into being and how you can contribute the movement. Hopefully, this brief history lesson will be more interesting than you expect. You’ll see some familiar faces and better understand the lingo of Open Source.

In the Beginning, all Software was Free

We all know something about the early days of the mail-order home PC. Much of the software development for these early machines was written and shared in user groups. Among other Apple soon-to-be’s Steve Wozniac was a high profile figure. In these groups, software hackers came in with their source code and openly shared their work in hopes of forwarding the small movement of home computer hobbyists. One notable figure missing from the fun: young Bill Gates. Though an early part of Silicon Valley, this young enterprising enthusiast sought to introduce the concept of coding for money.

Freeing UNIX

On the corporate/educational front there were also early divisions on paid versus free software. AT&T created UNIX, but by the 70′s many of the utilities and additions to UNIX had been created by contributing academics. These students and professors wanted their work to be free. AT&T was of the same school of thought that Gates was. To solve the problem, professors organized a tremendous volunteer effort to recode the AT&T-owned portions of UNIX. Their product was a free version of UNIX that lives on in FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Apple’s Darwin.

Protecting Free Software: the GPL

Other coders who wanted their hard work to remain free devised the Free Software Foundation, GNU (GNU not UNIX) and a new kind of software liscence: the GPL (GNU Public License). Unlike Berkley’s “free to distribute” license, the GPL goes one step further. Software published under the GPL must be free and include source code. Also, any additions to the software must also be made available free. This protected the work of good-will programmers that didn’t want a company capitalizing on their hard work.

The Free OS

Under the protection of the GPL, Linus Torvalds created, and maintains today, the Linux project. I say maintains because, thanks to the protection of the GPL hundreds of programmers and dozens of companies have contributed to Linux. Now, as Mac users we tend to see Linux as a threat. Nothing could be farther from the truth. One of the core values of GNU software and Linux is portability. This includes efforts to maintain Linux and GNU software for the on the PowerPC processor as well as porting projects like Fink. With OS X’s core (Darwin) a close cousin of Linux, we can enjoy the products of the Linux movement too.

Free as in Beer, Free as in Freedom

Open Source software is about more than free code. GNUs define two types of freedom – free as in beer (free to download and guzzle) and free as in freedom (free to modify the source code, free to distribute). The later type of free may not seem as important – but it is.

Contributing to Open Source

Inspired by the idea that software should be free? Eager to join the army of hobbyists and professional coders? Don’t know a thing about coding? That’s okay. In fact, what many say is a weakness of Open Source software is a core strength of many Mac users: design. Along with contributions of art, an eager Open Source supporter can contribute in may ways:

  • GUI/Theme/Template Design
  • Marketing, Evangelism and Promotion
  • Contributions to Documentation
  • Help in Support Forums

The beauty of community build software is that projects from Mozilla Firefox to tiny Mac freeware apps are inclusionary and always looking for help.

Conclusions, Part 1

Okay, that was a lot of background. But I think it is worth knowing about the origins of free software and the ties it has to the Mac. In a couple weeks we’ll continue our discussion of free software by highlighting its future. We’ll talk about how you can still make money with free software and we’ll identify some of Open Source’s friends and foes.

Until then, long live free software!

Brian

Note: Next week we’ll have something to download, I promise

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Apr 27 2009

Universal Chat Clients

By: Brian Burnham

At last it’s Friday, and time for another featured download of the week.

The Joy of Chat

Back in the early days of the net when chat was born, many of us found ourselves on IRC (internet relay chat). Today the world’s chatters are broken up over several major chat networks.

The problem of interpolarity

Fortunately, there is a solution without having to simultaneously run multiple chat clients. Enter the universal chat clients:

Fire

Fire is perhaps the oldest chat client out there for OS X. It came out in the beta days. Since then it has steadily improved to a veritable bonfire of features. These include support for PGP security, limited file transfer and undocumented “smileys”.

Features and frequent updates make this my at-home chat choice. Fire, like most universal clients, supports ICQ, Yahoo, AIM and MSN

Proteus

Proteus is a newer OS X client, very similar to Fire. Though initial releases lacked Fire’s stability, current releases nearly match Fire in features and stability.

Proteus has two extra features that set it apart from Fire. First, Proteus has a corresponding menu bar icon (and you know how I love those) and its configurable windows make your chatting more subtle. This is useful if you chat at work and don’t want others to notice. Proteus supports the same chat networks as Fire.

Jabbernaut

So, “what do I do,” you ask, “if I’m still running OS 9?” Well there is hope. While I have not found a true universal chat client for the “classic” OS, there is another solution. While the above clients do the translating themselves, the Jabber network is composed of servers that do the “interpolation” of the different chat networks, similar to the way IRC works. Thus all you need is a Jabber client, like Jabbernaut. The down side? The Jabber networks can be unstable, as it is constantly being updated. However it is a solution worth investigating.

Also, if you get hooked on Jabber and upgrade to X you’ll be able to use Fore or Proteus to access your Jabber account.

So, until next week I’ll expect to see you on AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo…

Brian

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